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PHILADELPHIA 

Social Science Association. 



CHAIRS OF PEDAGOGICS 

IN OUR 

UNIVERSITIES. 



A DISCUSSION 

or THE 

SCIENCE UND SRT'OF EDUCATION 

A8 

UNIYERSITY DISCIPLINES. 

BT 

EDMUND J. JAMES, Ph. D., 

PrnfessDr in the University of Pennsylvania. 



Published by the 

PHILADELPHIA SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION, 

J20 Locust Street, Philadelphia. 

\ 



>\^.-- 






CONTENTS. 



Expansion of the College and consequent change in the character of its work. 

Harvard College as an illustration. 

Accidental character of our educational progress and consequent unequal develop- 
ment of different subjects of instruction. 

Result, that unimportant subjects have received undue attention, while very import- 
ant branches have been almost or entirely neglected. 

To the latter class belongs the subject of the Science and Art of Education. 

This branch should now be introduced into our Colleges and Universities for a 
three-fold reason : 
(i.) Specific office of the University to further the development of science as 

such and consequently of the science of education, 
(2.) Liberalizing character of this subject. 
(3.) Practical advantages resulting from its cultivation. 

Inefficient character of our present teaching. 

No requirement at present of any previous professional preparation for this im- 
portant calling. 

No evidence of professional study in the case of actual teachers. 

Origin and cause of present state of things. 

Normal schools and their functions. 

Need of professional training for high school and college work as shown by charac- 
ter of educational problems involved. 

Possible methods of furnishing this training : 

(l.) Inducements to private individuals to furnish these facilities. 

(2.) Postgraduate seminaries for training of teachers for such work. 

(3.) College and University Departments for the Cultivation of this Subject. 

Advantages of such departments : 

(I.) Would conduct the training of teachers under the best surroundings. 
(2 ) Would tend to make teaching a real profession. 
(3.) Would furnish facilities to all who care to improve their own work. 
(4.) Would afford opportunities for the few choice spirits who are qualified by 
nature to make contributions to the art and science of the subject to pre- 
pare themselves properly for the work. 

What courses should be established. 

Certain objections answered. 

Facilities offered in Germany, England, Scotland and the United States. 

Summary. 

APPENDIX. 

Note I. Literature of the Subject. 

" II. Functions of the University. 

" III. Normal Schools and Their Work. 

" IV. Argument for Training of Teachers in Regents' Report. 

" V. Post-graduate Seminaries. 

" VI. Proper Place for Training Teachers. 

" VII. British Universities and Training of Teachers. 

2 

♦ Roland* P. Falkner- 



Chairs of Pkoaoooics 

IN OUR 

UNIVKRSITIKS. 

Among the interesting phenomena connected with Ameri- 
can education of the last thirty years none are more 
striking than the expansion of the college and the change in 
the character of its work. A generation ago the college offered 
to its students only one prescribed course of study in which 
Classics and Mathematics formed the chief constituents. 
These subjects were supplemented by a little elementary 
instruction in natural science and a taste of moral science and 
history. There was no recognition of the desirability of consulting 
different tastes among the students, or of encouraging devotion 
to any branches of study except those which formed the staples 
of the curriculum. So many hours each week were devoted in 
the Freshman year to Latin, so many to Greek, so many to 
Mathematics. The Sophomore year was a continuation of the 
Freshman year. In the Junior year a little attention was given 
to History, Physics and possibly Chemistry ; while in the 
Senior year a few hours were given to Political Economy, 
Philosophy, Ethics and Constitutional Law. All the students 
took the same number of hours in each subject. 

The present curriculum is very different from the former in 
all institutions, which have been enabled by the possession of 
pecuniary resources to advance. The great difference may be 
made clear by comparing the present curriculum of the institu- 
tion, which has carried through these changes most consistently 
with the one in existence a generation ago. Harvard College, 
although not the first to begin this reform, nor successful in her 
first attempts to introduce it, has by a series of happy coinci- 
dences taken her place at the very head of the column and stands 
to-day by universal consent at the head of American institutions, 

3 



^ 



so far as number of different branches taught in its curriculum 
and the number of courses offered in each branch is concerned. 

This will appear more clearly by a brief comparison of one of 
its late announcements with the typical course. The following 
subjects were represented in the college by different courses, 
aggregating the number of exercises per week indicated by the 
figures following each subject : — 

Hebrew, 6 ; Aramaic, 2 ; Assyrian, 6 ; Arabic, 4 ; Ethiopic, 
2 ; Sanskrit, 8 ; Old Iranian, 2 ; Greek, 40 ; Latin, 40 ; English, 
29; German, 24; French, 26; Italian, 10; Spanish, 12; 
Philosophy, 30; Political Economy, 17; History, 45 ; Roman 
Law, 6 ; Fine Arts, 17 ; Music, 13 ; Mathematics, 38 ; Physics, 
21 ; Chemistry, 23 ; Natural History, 50; total, 471. 

The typical college has something like the following : — 
Greek, 11 ; Latin, 11 ; Mathematics, 12 ; History, 5 ; Physics, 
4 ; Natural History, 2 ; French, 3 ; German, 3 ; Political 
Economy, 3 ; Political Science, Ethics, &c.. 3 ; Philosophy and 
Logic, 3 ; total, 60. That is. Harvard College offers nearly 
eight times as many exercises per week in the various branches 
of human science as the ordinary classical college.* 

Important as this change in the number of subjects of 
instruction has been for our college system, it is no more 
important than another change intimately related to it though 
quite different in character, and that is the revolution in the 
kind of teaching afforded in each of the leading subjects. This 
difference is much greater than one would infer from a mere 
contemplation of the subjects announced in the catalogues. 
/ Even thirty years ago, for example, the subject of Political 
Economy was included in nearly all the college curricula of the 
country. But it was at that time taught by the president of the 
college, usually a clergyman, whose time was fully occupied by 
other duties, and whose attitude toward such topics was 
hopelessly biased by the fact of his theological education and 
profession. To-day it is taught in our better institutions by men 
who have made a specialty of social and economic topics, and 



* Of course, this could not be done satisfactorily without an elective system of 
some sort — either elective study, elective course, or elective group system, nnder 
which each student takes no greater number of hours per week than under the old 
plan, but has a much wider range of choice in the selection of his subjects. 



whose whole time and attention are devoted to this department 
of investigation. More than that, where thirty years ago, one 
short course of perhaps forty to fifty exercises was considered 
sufficient, to-day, no college of any size is satisfied unless 
it can, at least, double or triple these opportunities, and several 
of the centers offer a number of courses, each of which has 
more exercises than were formerly offered in the whole 
curriculum. The same thing is true of other subjects, so 
that we can fairly say, that the teaching of such subjects was 
formerly tutorial merely, and given by men who were qualified 
in that subject only for a tutor's work, while to-day it is pro- 
fessional and given by experts in the various subjects. This 
difference is vast, and signifies a total revolution in the spirit and 
results of college work. 

This development, significant and far reaching as it is, has, 
however, not been symmetrical. It has gone on in an almost 
accidental way. The subjects which have received the most 
careful attention have been in many cases those far removed, rela- 
tively speaking, from the immediate demands of our national life. 
Thus, the subject of Assyriology, than which it would be difficult 
to find one more remote from all our practical interests, speak- 
ing in a narrow sense, has received such an impetus, that an 
American student can now find as good opportunities for its 
study at home as abroad, and very much better advantages than 
in most other countries. On the other hand, the subject of 
Political and Social Science has received only inadequate recog- 
nition, considering their vital importance to our political and 
social development. The reason for this is not far to seek. 
Our higher educational institutions are, to a large extent, in the 
hands of private parties, who are bound in their management of 
the institution by many an old provision of a will, or by strong 
corporate or individual interests. They are dependent for their 
resources upon private beneficence for the means of carrying on 
their work at all. Every individual, therefore, who imagines 
that he knows what the educational interests of the time demand 
and who has a sum of money at his command, may practically 
determine the whole course of an institution by giving the money, 
on condition that it be used in a definite manner to promote a 



definite subject or subjects. The universities are, therefore, 
rarely in a position to pay much attention to symmetrical 
development, with a due regard to the wider interests of the 
community. It is rather a wonder, under the circumstances, that 
their curricula are as symmetrical as they are. 

This circumstance makes it necessary, that from time to time 
we should canvass our institutions and our national needs, and 
ascertain whether the former are answering the latter to as full 
an extent as possible. If it appears that in this accidental pro- 
cess of development we are leaving great gaps, then it is our 
duty to call attention to this fact, and urge upon the directors of 
our institutions and upon the benefactors of the public, the 
necessity of remedying such defects by timely action. 

Prominent among the subjects which are fundamentally 
important to our national welfare, and yet, which are almost 
entirely neglected by our higher institutions, is Education in its 
historical, scientific, and practical aspects. It is the purpose of 
the present paper to investigate the relation of this branch of 
inquiry to the country at large, to the teaching profession, and 
to the higher institutions of learning themselves.* 

If we examine our national institutions and arrange them in 
order of their importance to national welfare, we shall certainly 
put high in the list those pertaining to the training and 
education of the people. The work of education itself is, of 
course, of fundamental importance to national welfare, since it 
is one of the most important means of transmitting to the next 
generation the heritage of culture, which we have received 
from our predecessors. It is the means by which the con- 
tinuity of progress is preserved. Accordingly as it is well or 
ill done is the basis of all future progress maintained. It is 
moreover, the means by which each successive generation is 
made more worthy than the preceding, to take up and carry on 
the work of furthering civilization in every department.! 

The work of education determines whether the individuals 
upon whom will shortly rest the burden of managing the world's 



* See note I, Appendix. 
•j-Cp. Spencer on Education. 



affairs shall be properly prepared for their task, and con- 
sequently, whether the sacrifices which all preceding generations 
have made for this end shall be crowned with legitimate fruit. 
Surely a subject of this importance can not receive too much 
attention from those who are interested in the progress of the 
race. 

But the subject is of special importance to the welfare and 
existence of the institutions of education themselves. It is 
surely proper that a set of institutions which exist solely for the 
purpose of promoting education should encourage and develope 
the science of education itself and the art which rests upon it. 
It is surely fitting that they should devote time and effort to 
collecting all the information on this subject which is obtain- 
able ; that they should investigate everything which pertains to 
the proper ends and means of this very work in which they are 
engaged. One would suppose that they would, as a matter, of 
course, take care that this department of human learning so 
immediately relating to themselves should be adequately 
protected and fostered. 

The subject is important in a special sense to a large and 
growing class in the community, viz., the individuals who carry 
on the actual work of instruction in our educational institutions 
of all grades from the lowest to the highest. It is surely to 
their interest that everything should be done to promote the 
advance of human science in a field where their whole interest 
is concentrated; that they should favor every plan which 
promises to increase Dur knowledge of the human mind in its 
relations to training, of the methods of reaching desired results 
and of the proper kind of results to reach. 

When, however, we actually examine the existing institu- 
tions, we shall find that little or nothing has been done to foster 
and promote this branch of human learning, in spite of its 
importance in these various respects. In spite of the fact, that 
we have some 300,000 teachers in this country whose success, 
tested by any proper standard, depends on the fullest and 
completest knowledge of principles and practice in this field; in 
spite of the fact, that we have nearly four hundred higher 
institutions of various kinds engraved in turning: out such 



8 

teachers for this work ; in spite of the fact, that the public is 
paying hundreds of millions of dollars in order to have this work 
of education carried on by these teachers, and that it is therefore 
vitally interested in their knowing everything possible about 
this subject, the truth remains, that in this whole country 
there is no centre adequately equipped for the purpose of 
fostering and promoting this great department of human science 
and art. In the case of most of our large institutions the subject 
is not even mentioned in any part of their announcements. This 
is exceedingly noticeable in regard to Harvard College,where they 
seem to have thought of almost everything else, but pass over 
this branch of learning entirely. 

This state of things which may be explained, though it can 
hardly be justified, will he touched upon again in another part of 
the paper. 

In our opinion, the time has fully come, when the subject 
of education in its historical, scientific and practical aspects, 
should find a place in the curricula of our higher institutions of 
learning. This claim is made on a three-fold basis. It is, in the 
first place, one of the prime functions of the University as such, 
to contribute as far as possible to the advance of human science 
in every department of life.* The study of this subject affords, 
moreover, a liberal training, as surely as the study of many of 
the recognized constitutents of our present curricula, and as 
such, deserves a place by the side of other elements of a liberal 
education. And, finally, the practical results which would flow 
from such incorporation are many and great. 

We are coming more and more in this country to recognize 
what is a commonplace in all other civilized lands, that the 
higher institutions of learning do not exist, merely in order to 
transmit hereditary intellectual possessions of one generation 
to the next ; not merely to train the rising generation in existing 
science and art, but also, and quite as much for the purpose of 
furthering science itself. Experience has shown, that in order 
to secure adequate attention to any great branch of science, even 
in the best of these institutions, it is necessary to recognize it as 
a proper subject of university work, by establishing professor- 



* See Note II., Appendix. 



ships, whose incumbents have the duty of promoting by 
original investigations in every direction the subjects which 
they represent. It is in this way, that that mangificent system 
of higher institutions, the German Universities, have gained 
the leading place in the education of the world. It is, in a 
word, the wise endowment of research in connection with 
a practical recognition of the value of such studies which has 
produced this remarkable result. Other universities are follow- 
ing this feature, which, although it did not originate in Germany, 
has found there its best modern exemplification. We recognize 
now, that if a number of professorships are established in any 
department of learning and properly filled by suitable men, the 
result can not fail to be a great widening of our range of 
knowledge along such lines of investigation. When we can 
count thirty or forty professors of the Science and Art of Educa- 
tion in our American Universities, we may be sure that these 
disciplines will be greatly advanced, and that the professors 
will discover and elaborate much which will be of great value 
from a scientific, as well as a practical point of view. It is 
believed, moreover, that in such a country as ours, where the 
division of labor is carried through so thoroughly, this is the 
only method which will ensure the regular and rapid advance 
of human science in this department. 

But as it is, we have already a number of contributions to 
the science of education, the study of which can not but result 
in the same sort of liberal training, which is produced by the 
pursuit of any other branch of speculative thought or institutional 
history. In such Colleges as Harvard, Michigan, Cornell, Johns 
Hopkins, Pennsylvania, Yale and many others, it is recognized 
by the adoption of a partial or complete elective system for the 
degree of A.B., that the value of any study so accepted is about 
equal to that of any other in the course of liberal training. 
Now, the subject which is called the science of education, 
though still very limited, and made up for the most part of 
disputed propositions, is of the same character as any other 
branch of the philosophic or moral sciences, and if pursued, 
even in its present form, would give the same kind of discipline. 
The study of educational theories is a branch of the history of 



lO 

philosophy, while the history of educational institutions and 
processes and methods is also a branch, and a very important 
one, of institutional history. Education can lay claim to the 
same sort of treatment accorded to these subjects on its own 
intrinsic merits as a branch of liberal training. It should be in- 
cluded, therefore, as a branch of study in every college which 
has adopted the elective system of studies leading to a liberal 
degree. 

It is, moreover, fitting, that the college and university 
should afford opportunities for this kind of work, since they are 
the great trainers of our teachers. Even in the State of New 
York, which has, perhaps, provided on the whole, the best 
opportunities for such education as may be gained outside of a 
college, three-fourths of the principals of academies are 
graduates of college. Fully one-third, if not one half of all the 
graduates of the colleges of this country teach for a longer or 
shorter period after graduating.* The colleges and universities 
recruit their teaching force almost exclusively from the ranks of 
college men, and they should furnish facilities for these men to 
prepare themselves for their work.f 

Finally, the subject of education should be included as a con- 
stituent part of the curriculum of our higher institutions of 
learning, on account of the great practical advantages which 
would flow from such a step. It would contribute more than 
any other one thing to an improvement of our educational system. 
It would do this in several ways. As already noted, it would tend 
to increase our knowledge of educational science and art, so that 
all teachers who cared to do so could improve their work by 
applying this increased knowledge. To those teachers who 
desired to prepare themselves professionally for their work, it 
would afford opportunities which do not exist at present. By 
affording these opportunities, it would tend to beget a desire for 
this sort of professional training, which could not but result in a 
great increase in the number of those teachers who would thus 
seek to prepare themselves better for their work ; and in this 

* Cp. Normal Instruction in Colleges, Edward North, University of New 
York. Regent's Report, 1869, p. 701. 
f Cp. Note II'., Appendix. 



II 

way a professional spirit would grow up, which would produce the 
most beneficial effect in raising the character of the average 
teacher. In other words, the universities would contribute a 
very important service in offering to the teachers of the country 
a professional training for their future careers. 

The possibility of establishing in the universities a course 
of study in the science and art of education, which would be of 
aid to future teachers in preparing themselves for their work 
has been much discussed of late both at home and abroad. 
It is my firm conviction, after carefully following this discussion 
as far as I have been able to inform myself from actual observa- 
tion and from the literature concerning it, that those who have 
maintained that such a course could and should be established 
have made out their case clearly and conclusively. 

The need of improvement in our teaching is, I think, 
apparent, and is generally conceded. If we confine our attention 
in the first instance, to the domain of so-called secondary educa- 
tion, we shall have to admit, I think, that most of the teaching 
done in this field is of a very low grade. Certainly, no one 
who has passed through the different forms of one of our 
preparatory schools, high schools, or academies, and who is 
endowed with a reflective turn of mind can resist the conviction 
that the great majority of the men and women who were en- 
trusted with the task of training him were unskilled laborers 
in this most important of fields. 

The explanation of this fact in the case of many of the 
teachers is easy. They are too young and too inexperienced to 
be very successful in their work. But even in the case of those 
who have been engaged in teaching for years, the majority of 
them would be classed under the rubric of very moderate or very 
poor teachers. The case is in nowise different in the colleges. 
A very large percentage of the men engaged in the work of 
college instruction are inefficient. Surely there is great need 
of trying everything which promises to assist in remedying 
this great evil. 

The most striking fact relating to this condition of things 
is the circumstance that in this whole department there is al- 
most absolutely no trace of requiring any previous special 



12 

training for the work of education. In the case of a physician 
the community demands that he shall have attended some 
special school organized for the particular purpose of training 
those who wish to practice medicine. We insist that he shall 
have the certificate of a body of specialists that he has given 
some study and attention to the bodies of the patients upon 
which he practices, that be shall have studied the nature and 
qualities of the drugs which he proposes to give, and that he shall 
have begun his practice under the eye of a trained specialist, 
and thus acquire some skill before he may go out and set him- 
self up as a physician. The same thing is true of the dentists 
and apothecaries. We refuse to entrust even our teeth to the 
care of any one who has not taken a course of special training 
under competent authorities. Nay even the men who wish to 
practice upon animals, even our cat and dog doctors, must first 
prove that they have spent two or three years in studying all 
that is known of cat and dog treatment before we give them carte 
blanche in treating our useful or ornamental animals. It is only 
in the case of those who are to undertake the treatment of the 
minds of our children of whom we demand absolutely no evi- 
dence of skill. Socrates accused the Athenians justly of exer- 
cising more discrimination in the selection of the trainers for 
their horses and cows than of the trainers for their children. 
Since Socrates' time we have made great improvements in the 
selection of the trainers of our animals, but we are still on the 
level of the Athenians so far as selecting teachers for our 
own children is concerned. 

It is not only true that we have no special institutions whose 
chief object is the preparation of teachers for this grade of in- 
struction, but there are few courses in connection with existing 
institutions which have for their purpose this peculiar training 
suitable for the future teacher. Nor is this by any means a full 
statement of the case. When we come to examine the system 
of appointing teachers we shall find that no requirement is 
made in such schools that the candidates seeking appointment 
shall know anything about the subject of education in general or 
the teaching of the particular branches he will take up, beyond 
that minimum which he must necessarily have absorbed in com- 



13 

mon with every educated man in connection with his own edu- 
cational course or, possibly, that practical and empirical ac- 
quaintance which it is presumed he must have obtained if he 
has actually taught for a longer or shorter period. Nor is this 
all. If we go into the schools themselves and inquire of the 
actual teachers who are conducting the work how much time 
and attention they may have given to the study and investiga- 
tion, we will not say, of educational problems in general, but of 
the special and particular problems connected with the branches 
they are teaching, we shall be amazed at the ignorance dis- 
played by the average teacher in such schools in regard to many 
of the fundamental questions relating to his work. He knows 
little or nothing of what his colleagues are doing in the same 
line in other places, what experiments they are trying, what 
results they are attaining, what ideals they have before them 
and by what methods they are working towards them. He 
knows, if possible, still less about what his predecessors did in 
the same field before he entered it. He has never given any 
time or attention to the history of teaching in his branch. He 
knows nothing of the experience of the race in that department 
though it may be a recorded one dating back 2,500 years. In 
other words, he is going it alone without any reference to the 
success or failure of the thousands who may have traveled the 
same road before. 

Not only is he ignora.nt of the thought and experience of the 
race in the field in which he is at work, but he has never even 
given any considerable reflection on his own account to the 
work he is doing. He has no well defined idea as to the edu- 
cational purposes and objects of the branch which he is teach- 
ing, or as to the wisdom or unwisdom of the methods which he 
adopts. In a word, nearly every element which is a distinc- 
tively characteristic result of professional training is lacking, 
not only in the candidates for such positions, but in large num- 
bers of the present incumbents. 

A striking confirmation of this view is to be found in the 
class of considerations which determine the appomtment ta 
positions in our secondary schools and colleges. Leaving out 
the cases, which are unfortunately too numerous, where personal 



14 

considerations are the decisive element, let us take an instance 
where the determination exists to select the best men who can 
be obtained. What are the questions asked in regard to the 
candidate ? Suppose it is a position to teach mathematics in 
a high school, preparatory school or college. Is he a gradu- 
ate of a college .-' Has he taught .'' Did he succeed in his teach- 
ing } Has he had a special course in mathematics ? Can he 
manage the boys } If you can answer these questions in the 
affirmative you are perfectly content — greatly rejoiced, in fact, 
since a man who can fill this bill and will take the remuneration 
offered is a avis vara. And yet, even in this case, there is no 
trace of a requirement that the candidate shall have had in any 
peculiar sense a professional education. Scholarship and a 
knack of getting along with the boys are the two things sought. 
No question as to whether the candidate knows anything of the 
most improved existing methods of teaching his subject ; no 
question as to whether he knows anything of the experience of 
the great army of mathematical teachers who have preceded 
him ; no question as to whether he has studied the opinions of 
the great thinkers as to the peculiar educational function of his 
special branches, or as to their relation to other branches, and 
their consequent position in a liberal or technical curriculum — 
in a word, no question which would indicate that this man is 
going into the department of teaching this subject rather than 
into any one of numerous occupations where a knowledge of 
mathematics might be useful to him. The very most that is 
required is *' successful experience in teaching," which means 
simply, under ordinary conditions, ability to manage a class of 
boys or young men so that they will observe reasonable order 
during the class room hour. Ordinarily we are content, as we 
must be, with the assurance of a very moderate amount of 
scholarship. 

In other words, we do not recognize in this department of 
education the desirability of a professional training as distinct 
from a mere knowledge of the subject-matter of teaching, or 
from empirical experience in the class room. It is as if we 
were to be content in the case of the civil engineer with a 
knowledge of mathematics, or in the case of a physician with a 
knowledge of materia medica. 



15 

This is not true of all departments of education. There 
is in the field of so-called elementary education a growing rec- 
ognition of the desirability of some sort of professional train- 
ing, as is demonstrated by the rapidly increasing number of 
normal schools. We would not maintain that these schools 
have done all that was expected of them by the enthusiastic 
men who labored for their introduction into this country, nor 
can we admit all their advocates claim for them as they actually 
exist in this country to-day ; nor can we allow that even under 
more favorable circumstances they could achieve what certain 
educators claim for them. But we must admit that they have 
contributed powerfully to improve the condition of elementary 
schools in all countries where they have been properly organ- 
ized and managed, and that this advantage has come chiefly 
from the circumstance that they recognize the necessity and 
possibility of some kind of professional training for those who 
expect to teach in our elementary schools.* 

The field of the normal schools, however, at the best is 
extremely limited, and it is simply impossible that they should 
ever furnish the kind of training in education which must be 
given if we are to improve our educational system rapidly and 
continuously. They do not make m,any or valuable contribu- 
tions to the science of education, and we cannot expect it of 
them under present conditions, or indeed, under any conditions 
which are likely to be realized for generations to come. They 
do serve as valuable distributing reservoirs of the science and 
art, which are evolved elsewhere, and we can not now do with- 
out them any more than we can allow ourselves to remain de- 
pendent upon them for the training in educational art and 
science which teachers in other fields require. 

It is a curious circumstance that the recognition of the 
necessity of some sort of professional training is characteristic 
of Elementary education, while in the domain of secondary and 
higher education there is scarcely a trace of it. 

It seems to me that the explanation is to be found in three 
facts. The great advance in this respect in elementary educa- 
tion is due chiefly to a historical accident. When the work of 

* See Note IV., Appendix. 



i6 

developing elementary schools was finally taken up in earnest 
the demand for teachers immediately outran the supply. It 
was simply impossible to get a sufficient number of persons who 
possessed the requisite scholarship to teach even the three R's. 
The recognition of this fact was followed by the establishment 
of schools for the education of teachers. The work, in the first 
instance, was nearly entirely academic in character, i. e., it was 
confined to the teaching of the subject-matter alone, and a large 
majority of our so-called normal schools in this country are still 
in this stage, i. e., they are nothing but academies, even where 
they pretend to be something more. But the possibility and 
desirability of developing a professional training in conneetion 
with such schools soon became evident. As . a result, there 
was a thorough going and in some cases a rapid 
revolution and evolution, and the professional school 
emerged from the academy. Our best normal schools can now 
fairly be called professional schools, for even where they keep 
the academic work and instruct in all the branches taught in 
our common schools, as most of them do, the whole instruction 
has a professional character and is given with reference to the 
fact that the pupil is to become a teacher in these and similar 
branches. 

The history of higher and secondary education has been, en 
the contrary, a very different one. Our colleges and universities 
have always sent out more men with a moderate degree of 
scholarship and a willingness to teach than could find places in 
our schools and colleges. As a consequence, the public has 
never felt the necessity of special institutions to impart the re- 
quired degree of scholarship, and as the teachers acquired 
their education in an institution which existed as much for the 
future lawyer, doctor, clergyman and merchant as for the 
teacher, it was undesirable and impossible to shape the instruc- 
tion for the special benefit of the last class. 

In these two facts then lie, I believe, the explanation of the 
origin of the present condition in regard to this question. Its 
continuance is owing to conservatism and to the general preva- 
lence of what must be regarded as a perniciously false idea that 
a thorough knowledge of the subject-matter of teaching is a 
sufificient preparation for a teacher's work. 



While, therefore, the present state of things can be easily 
explained, it can not be so easily justified. There is the same 
inefficiency in our secondary and higher work which formerly 
existed in every branch of elementary education. It is due in 
part to the same cause, viz.: lack of acquaintance with educa- 
tional literature and educational experience. It may be largely 
remedied by similar means, viz.: the professional training of the 
candidate in the science and art of education before he may 
enter the work. We suffer at present on the one hand from 
the inexperience of the beginner, the evil effects of which may 
be greatly reduced by calling his attention, before he begins his 
work, to the pitfalls which lie on every side of him, by present- 
ing to him the results of educational experience and thought, 
as to the significance from a general and a special point of view 
of the branches he is going to teach and the methods with 
which the great and small educators of the world have tried to 
accomplish what they considered desirable ends. We suffer on 
the other hand from the experience of the routinist, who, hav- 
ing begun his work with no acquaintance with the problems or 
history of education has continued it, one might almost say, as 
a handicraft, with no desire to know what others are doing or 
have done, are thinking or have thought on the work in which 
he is engaged. He would have been a very different teacher 
had he begun his career with an appreciation of the importance 
and success of his work, with the knowledge of its relation to 
the past and the present, and under the influence of the 
esprit de corps which ever springs from a consciousness of 
being a part of a learned professional body. 

The professional training of teachers for our higher schools 
and colleges is as necessary as the professional training of ele- 
mentary teachers.* This will appear, \ think, from the follow- 
ing consideration : 

The problems of secondary education, i. e., of education in 
our secondary schools are, for a part of the course, exactly the 
same as those of the so-called elementary education. The 
term secondary school we apply to those which fit for colleges 
and universities. Now very many such schools take the boys 

* See Note V., Appendix. 



i8 

and girls at an early age, usually at ten years and often younger. 
Of course, in the case of such pupils the pedagogical problems 
are exactly the same, somewhat modified, it is true, in some in- 
stances by the studies pursued. If one set of teachers profit 
by a professional training in work of this grade, it is reasonable 
to suppose that the other must do so, too. 

Again, the problem of secondary education in those grades 
above the lowest — say in the three years immediately preced- 
ing the college — although not exactly the same, are quite as 
broad, complicated aud difficult as those in the lower grades. 
In some respects, indeed, from a practical point of view they 
are more difficult, since in the case of the latter, one knotty 
question, viz.: what branches should be studied is in a large 
part decisively determined by the practical demands of our mod- 
ern life and the subsequent course of study. Reading, writing, 
and arithmetic must be largely studied in the early years. 

In the third place the pedagogical questions of the college 
are in many respects similar to those in the upper grades of 
the preparatory schools. In the average college, indeed, with a 
prescribed course and text-book study, there is but little differ- 
ence in the problems of instruction except those growing out 
of the age of the pupil. A foreigner in passing from the high- 
est form of a preparatory school to the freshman class of an 
ordinary college would notice but little if any difference either in 
subject or method in the instruction of good teachers. 

Finally, the larger pedagogical problems which are decided 
in our college and university faculties relating to subjects of 
admission, methods of examination, system of electives, are 
such as imperatively demand for their proper decision that 
thorough acquaintance with the problems of education, their 
genesis, development and solution which if general, can only be 
the accompaniment of a course of professional instruction 
which shall embrace all who wish to teach. 

So much for the importance of the problems involved. 
The necessity of some preparation on the part of those who 
are to settle these problems, either theoretically or practically, 
follows almost as a matter of course. 

Logically speaking, there are several ways in which this 
might be done. The State might demand, as Adam Smith 



19 

proposed in speaking of a similar topic, that all candidates for 
positions in our higher schools and colleges should pass a State 
examination in the science of education, educational history, 
biographical, institutional and methodical, leaving the individuals 
to get the necessary instruction where they can, trusting to 
individual energy to organize schools for this work as a business 
enterprise. All educational history, however, shows that such 
a scheme is unsatisfactory. No high degree of acquirement can 
be demanded as a matter of fact. The State might, however, 
establish in addition, special post-graduate schools, whither 
graduates of college might go and get this special training prior 
to beginning the work of teaching. The Government of 
Prussia has done this to some extent, and although the experi- 
ment seems moderately successful, yet, it has never been tried on 
a sufficiently large scale to decide its practicability.* The State 
might also establish courses in the science and art of education, 
in connection with the existing schools for higher instruction, 
and require all candidates for such positions to pass an examina- 
tion in such courses. This is what Germany has done on a large 
scale, and the result is, that Germany leads the world in educa- 
tional matters, the German literature on educational topics being 
equal in value to that of all other countries. Scotland has also 
done something in this line. These plans in their entirety we 
can certainly not adopt here at present. It would be, politically 
speaking, impossible to require our private colleges to limit 
their appointments to those who had passed such a State exami- 
nation. Some of our State institutions in the West, have began 
the work by establishing courses of this kind, though they have 
few or no special privileges for students who have completed 
them. 

Another method, and one which is practicable here and in 
thorough sympathy with our American way of doing things, is 
for our existing colleges and universities to establish such 
courses, make them thoroughly efficient, and then trust to the 
growing insight of the public and of teachers themselves to 
beget a public sentiment which would make their completion a 
necessary part of every teacher's equipment. 

* See Appendix. Note VI. 



20 

A great advantage of this last method lies in the fact, that 
the teachers in acquiring their professional training would be 
subject to the liberalizing influences of a great centre of culture, 
and would thus avoid that narrowness which too often 
characterizes those who are trained to a specific calling in 
special schools which have no connection with liberal depart- 
ments.* 

One of the chief practical advantages of such a develop- 
ment, as noted above, would be its tendency to make the calling 
of teacher a profession. Our schools are to-day, speaking 
generally, taught by men and women who have no idea of re- 
maining in the work any longer than they can help. The 
majority of teachers in all grades from the ungraded country 
schools to the college are teachers, so to speak from necessity. 
They are women waiting to get married, young men waiting until 
they can get money enough to go to the Law or Medical School, or 
finish their theological course or become dentists or veterinary 
surgeons — anything, in fact, except teachers. The average life 
of the teacher in the United States, taking in all classes, is not 
over four years at the outside. An examination into the educa- 
tional condition of the great State of Illinois, showed that the 
average public school teacher did not continue in the work 
above three years. Even the superintendents of city school 
systems, presidents and professors of high schools and princi- 
pals of ward schools, were only teaching until they could find 
something else to do. 

The reason for this state of things is, of course, a very 
complex one. It can not be sought in one circumstance. A 
very important ground is to be found in the fact, that the 
pecuniary inducements are so low, compared with those offered 
in other professions. But after making all allowances, one of 
the most important reasons is to be sought in the fact, that the 
great majority of teachers, especially in our secondary schools 
and colleges have really never become interested in the 
scientific aspects of their work. It is simple, bald handicraft, 
with no touch of the ideal or scientific in any of its aspects. 
They have no notion of the great and increasing literature on 

* See Appendix. Note VII. 



21 

the subjects they are teaching. They have never been called 
to look at the relations of their field of work to other important 
■departments of human science and art. They are ignorant of 
the grand opportunity for scientific work of the highest type. 
Now, the establishment of such courses of instruction would do 
this very service. Men, whose attention were attracted to the 
subject, would spend longer time in preparing themselves for 
the work, and having prepared themselves, specially they would 
be much slower in grasping at some other calling at the first 
opportunity. The recognition of the better class of work would 
lead to an increase in the salaries of the teachers themselves, 
and thus in a double way would the tendency to develope a pro- 
fession be strengthened. The common contempt which attaches 
to the idea of the teacher, it must be confessed, is justified by 
the work of the teachers themselves. An intelligent community 
can but attach a stigma to work of any sort which is 
absolutely unskilled. And of this character, is much, if not 
most of the teaching done in our country. 

It is not merely the acquirement of a professional training 
which improves the character of the rank and file of the follow- 
ers of a calling ; but the persistence in the calling, which the 
acquirement of such training favors, tends to raise the general 
level of skill. It is from this point of view that such courses 
of training in the universities promise much benefit to the 
teaching calling. 

Even if this result should not appear in its full extent, yet 
marked advantages would flow from such courses. We have 
already in this country scores and hundreds of teachers who, 
since they are in the work, earnestly desire to improve it in 
every way possible. Many have followed the calling for a long 
term of years. They are thoroughly alive and energetic and 
wish to keep abreast of what is doing in other places and 
countries. Few of them have such a knowledge of foreign 
languages as would enable them to profit very much by trying 
to read publications in those languages on such topics. Now 
how can they get this information ? They wish to study the 
science and history of education. They would like to know 
the educational problems of other times and the methods which 



22 

were adopted to solve them, since, by a comparative study only 
can they hope to get clear ideas as to real essentials of educa- 
tion and be brought to distinguish between the necessary and 
the accidental. They wish assistance and encouragement from 
men who are thoroughly familiar with this field and have made it 
the study of their lives. Now, where shall they go to get this 
sort of aid .'' To our sorrow be it said that there is no place 
this side of the Allegheny mountains where anything valuable 
of any considerable extent is offered to them. Nor is there, 
east or west, any place where facilities for the study of the art 
and science of education are provided to anything like the same 
extent as for the study of physics or history or chemistry in 
very many centers. 

Even if no others were reached it would be ample return 
for such an outlay of money if only this class could be aided in 
their efforts for improvement. There are, moreover, in every 
community, and fortunately for us their numbers are large in 
this country, some persons who choose this department of work 
because they would rather teach than do anything else in the 
world. These are the people from whose conscientious devotion 
to duty we have to promise ourselves most in the way of actual 
improvement of the science and art of education. They should 
have every facility for properly preparing themselves for this 
great work. In no other way can adequate facilities be offered 
them. 

Consider for a moment the magnitude of the mere money 
interests involved. The cities of this country, for example, are 
expending millions and millions of dollars in schemes of public 
education. Where do they get the men to guide and direct the 
work of organizing this magnificent machinery .'' They are at 
present men who amidst many difficulties of work and limited 
means have done their best to learn something of the problems 
and methods of education. Usually they are men who have 
had no opportunities to learn anything of the subject except 
what they could snatch up in the midst of a busy life. Is it 
any wonder that many mistakes are made ? That the same 
mistakes are made again and again which have been made in 
countless numbers of cases before them, and which might have 



23 

been avoided by the possession of a little knowledge of the ex- 
perience of the world in other places and times ? 

What courses then relating to this subject could and ought 
to be given in connection with the universities ? 

It is possible in all our larger colleges to give such courses 
as one professor could conduct. They would include lectures 
upon the science of education, upon the history of speculative 
thought in this department, and upon the classical writers and 
thinkers in this field. The history of educational institutions 
should also receive attention. The practical aspects of the sub- 
ject should not be neglected. The description, history and dis- 
cussion of methods of teaching, the plans of organizing and 
conducting schools and school systems, and other matters re- 
lating to practical aspects of the subject should be fully treated. 
In a few centers pedagogical seminaries should also be estab- 
lished for the purpose of exciting an interest in original inves- 
tigation and of training these few and choice spirits from whose 
work we could promise ourselves some substantial contributions to 
the science and art of this subject. It would not be necessary, 
of course, for all who were looking forward to be teachers to 
take this whole course. The lectures should be so arranged 
that a student by attending four or five hours for a year might 
get some notion of the importance and relation of the work to 
his special department. 

Many objections will be advanced to this general idea. It 
will be said, for example, the teacher is born, not made. A man 
who has the making of a teacher in him will be a good teacher 
without special preparation, and a poor teacher will remain a 
poor teacher, do what you can for him. This is the same old 
argument which is made to do duty on all similar occasions 
when it is proposed to organize any special professional in- 
struction. It was made against the medical school, against the 
dental, law, veterinary, and technical school. The idea is almost 
absurd on the face of it, and it is with considerable difificulty 
that one restrains one's self sufificiently to speak in conventional 
language of such an argument. Of course you cannot make a 
good teacher out of a man who lacks all the qualities of a 
teacher.* Nor can you make a good preacher out of a man who 

* See Appendix. Note VIII. 



24 

lacks all the elements of a preacher, nor a good lawyer or phy- 
sician out of a man who is naturally fitted for neither profes- 
sion ; nor, to take a more striking example, a good painter or 
musician out of a man who has not natural talents for such 
callings. And yet no one would think, now-a;days, of making 
that any objection to theological, medical, law, painting or music 
schools. 

Cicero answered this question in that delightful oration for 
the poet Archias in the passage beginning: Quae ret quispiam 
Quid. 

" After all this eulogy of learning and culture, some one may 
ask me: How would you answer this objection, viz.: that those 
illustrious men whose glorious deeds are recorded in literature 
were not trained by this culture. Well, that is true of some, 
and yet I am sure of this at any rate : I will grant that there 
have been many men of excellent mind and great ability who 
without this training have been eminent and cultured by virtue 
of a certain native, I might almost say, divine gift and power of 
their own. Nay more, I will add this, that natural ability with- 
out culture is of far more importance in all weighty matters 
than culture without natural ability. And yet, after all, I 
maintain that when to excellent natural ability is superadded 
that sort of modification which is effected by culture, then 
something remarkable and altogether unique is bound to ap- 
pear." 

Cicero might also have added that as very few men ever 
possess this high order of natural ability, the problem of actual 
life is how to make the average man better fitted for the duties 
which come to him, and that such training is especially adapted 
to improve this medium sort, which, after all is said and done^ 
constitutes the great majority of mankind. 

This special training in the history and methods of educa- 
tion increases the power of the very best, who alas ! are too few 
in number ; makes the average man, who forms the great ma- 
jority of all, better qualified for his work, and keeps the worst 
from making the grossest sort of mistakes. Just as a course in 
a medical school certainly improves the best man who has all 
the natural qualities of a good physician, improves even more the 



25 

medium man and keeps the poorest talent from actually butch- 
ering his patients from mere ignorance. 

The college or university which is the first to provide 
really good facilities in this department, not merely nominal 
facilities, such as exist at one or two of our institutions already, 
will certainly reap a harvest which it will richly deserve. 

It is a curious phenomenon of this movement that mem- 
bers of a college faculty have often expressed their contempt 
for such a plan as this in the very same meeting where in a dis- 
cussion of some important topic of college pedagogics they 
have displayed the most astounding ignorance not only of ped- 
agogical principles, but also of all history, even of the college 
system of our own country. I remember talking with one of 
the most prominent members of the faculty of Michigan Uni- 
versity in regard to the establishment of such a chair in that 
institution. He remarked that there was no use of such a de- 
partment. There was no need of such instruction in colleges. 
All such work should be relegated to the normal school. The 
very same week the college policy in regard to some of the most 
fundamental questions of education, was altered after a long 
discussion, every aspect of which was an almost purely peda- 
gogical one. The professor showed in its course that he had 
never studied such topics and insisted that he did not need to 
do so, although he took a prominent part in the debate and 
thought his opinion was entited to much weight. 

Before closing this paper, it is desirable to present briefly 
what is done in other countries in this field. As is generally 
known, the appointment of teachers in Prussia, is regulated by 
general law of the state, whether the teachers are to be 
appointed in private schools or public. It is also known that 
their system of schools is so arranged, that much of the work 
done in this country by our preparatory school and college is 
there done by one institution, viz.: the gymnasium or real school. 
Now, no master may be appointed to a position in any of these 
schools until he has passed a state examination in certain set 
subjects. This examination must furnish proof that the candi- 
date has graduated from a real school or gymnasium, has pursued 
at the university special studies in the subjects which he pro- 



26 

poses to teach. Thus, a man who wishes to teach Greek or 
Latin in a gymnasium, must show that he has graduated at a 
gymnasium, and then studied Greek and Latin for three years 
at a university after graduation. All candidates are examined 
in Philosophy and Pedagogics. The instructions to examiners 
direct them to assure themselves that the candidate possesses a 
general knowledge of the history of Modern Pedagogics, and a 
familiarity with the essential elements of methods of teaching. 

To give those who expect to be teachers an opportunity to 
prepare themselves in this subject, lectures on Pedagogics are 
delivered in all the universities. The Government is not con- 
tent with leaving the subject here. So much is demanded of 
all who expect to become teachers. Special opportunities are 
provided for those who desire to pursue the subject further. 
This is done by two classes of institutions : 

L The seminaries in connection with the universities and, 

II. Post-graduate seminaries on an independent basis. 

It is evident, however, that the Germans are not at all 
satisfied even with their present opportunities. There is an 
active movement in favor of providing more extensive facilities 
showing two things; (i) that they are well satisfied with 
present results as a beginning, and since the new plans involve 
working along the old lines, and (2) that present facilities are 
insufficient. 

In a paper by Dr. R. H. Hofmann, Professor of Pedagogics 
in the University of Leipzig, published in i88r, the author 
takes the ground that much has been accomplished, but also 
that much remains to be done. According to his statement, 
five professors lecture regularly in Pedagogics in this university, 
and the lectures are well attended by those who expect to 
become teachers in the various branches of study. 

The facilities for this sort of work in England are very 
inadequate, being even inferior to those in our own country. In 
two Scotch Universities, however, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, 
chairs of Pedagogics have been established, and men who wish 
certain public positions in the school system must be examined 
in this branch.* 



* See Appendix. N. IX, British Universities and the Training of Teachers. 



27 

In our own country, a start has already been made, which 
is worthy of a brief mention. 

Chairs of Pedagogics, either in form or reality have been 
established in the Universities of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, 
Cornell and Johns Hopkins. The work at Michigan is worthy 
of special notice on several accounts. 

It is under the charge of an accurate scholar of long, 
practical experience. It extends at present over two years and 
embraces seven courses : 

1. Practical course, discussing the art of teaching and 
governing, four hours per week, for one half year. 

2. Theoretical and critical, four hours per week, for one 
half year. 

3. School supervision, three hours per week, for one half 
year. 

4. Seminary, three hours per week, for one half year. 

5. History of education, three hours per week, for one half 
year. 

6. History of education, three hours per week, for one half 
year. 

7. Comparative study of educational systems, two hours per 
week, making the equivalent of ten hours per week, for one 

'"^N^ year. 

The system in Michigan University, is the elective under 
which one subject counts for as much as another, and the extent 
to which those courses supplied a want, may be judged by the 
number of students taking courses. The growth of this 
attendance will also indicate the part which the offering of 
such facilities have in developing a want for them. 

The number of students choosing the practical courses 
grew from 32 in 1879 to 74 in 1886, more than double. 

The number in the historical courses rose from 4 in 1883, 
the first year in which the course was offered, to 36 in 1886. 
The number in the theoretical course remained nearly stationary, 
rising from 65 in 1879, to 70 in 1886. Of the two hundred 
students graduating from the college department in 1885 and 
1886, eighty-three had taken one or more of these courses. The 
total number of different students attending all these courses 
rose from ^2 in 1879 to 117 in i! 



28 

In closing this paper, let me briefly summarize and present 
in a slightly different form, the considerations which I have tried 
to emphasize. 

The cause for which I plead is the establishment in connec- 
tion with our colleges and universities, of ample opportunities 
for the professional training of teachers for our higher schools 
and college. 

The grounds on which this is urged, are in brief, the 
following : 

I. There is great need of such training, as is evidenced by 
the fact, that the average teaching in such schools is far below 
what it might, and should be in point of efficiency. As a class, 
the actual teachers in our schools are, to a large extent, men 
and women who are looking forward to entering some other 
occupation as soon as practicable, and are devoting their whole 
time to preparation for such work. Having given little or no 
attention to the study of professional questions before they begin 
their work, they are not compelled to do so after entering it 
by the example or precept of their colleagues. Looking forward 
to some other calling, oftentimes out of mere lack of interest 
in their present work, they rarely ever begin the serious study 
of professional questions, even where for lack of opportunity 
they never leave the business. It is evident that the work of 
such a class as this, can not be of a very high character when 
tried by any fair test of efficiency. It is also evident from any 
close examination of the work actually done. Any director or 
head master will tell you in close confidence, that it is very easy 
to get teachers, but very difficult to get good teachers. Every 
parent knows quite well that the really good teachers of their 
children are the exceptions, and they can only judge, of course, 
by the most superficial considerations, such as the order the 
teacher keeps, the hold he may succeed in getting of the boys 
in certain external directions, etc. There is a vastly greater 
number, who without giving any such signs of incompetency as 
would strike a parent, are doing the children untold damage by 
false methods and through ignorance of the simplest pedagogical 
principles. There are other evidences also — but it is not neces- 



29 

sary to take more time to prove what almost all will agree is the 
case, that much of our teaching is of a comparatively low 
grade. 

II. It is possible to remedy this inefficiency to a con- 
siderable extent, by such a course of special training and study 
as can be established in connection with our colleges and 
universities. This is proved by the experience of Germany, of 
Scotland, and of certain States in our own country. Of course^ 
we do not maintain that the completion of such course will of 
itself make a teacher. The study of a science will never of it- 
self make a man capable to practice the art. But it will be of 
untold value, in that it makes the work intelligent, and raises it 
from the rank of a mere calling or handicraft to that of a fine 
art. It puts scientific work in the place of mere empiricism,, 
and thus makes the possibilities of the case in the direction of 
good work, enormously greater. It makes the natural born 
teacher a much better man for the work, by really filling him 
with the true professional spirit, and equipping him with the 
latest and most approved means of doing his work. It im- 
proves the mediocre teacher, relatively speaking, to a still 
greater extent, and makes a passable teacher out of the most 
unpromising stuff. It circumscribes very much the damage 
which the hopelessly unfit man would otherwise do, in this 
most precious of all vineyards. It will tend to improve the great 
rank and file of teachers, just as the establishment of medical 
schools and dental schools, have raised the rank of the great 
mass of medical and dental practitioners. Indeed, I know no 
better comparison for the purposes of illustration than this 
very class of dentists. The practice of dentistry was for a long 
time, the merest empirical, unskilled handicraft. The dentist, 
was the village barber or blacksmith. So long as the business 
was carried on as a secondary matter by men who followed other 
callings as well, and who had had no other preparation for their 
work than what they could pick up empirically from their own 
experience, it was evident that there was no hope of any con- 
siderable improvement. The establishment of special schools 
for instruction in this art has raised it from one of the lowest 
of trades, to the rank of a profession. Teaching in our 



30 

higher schools and colleges has long been, at least, respectable, 
owing to the necessary scholarship, which even the pretense of 
such work requires, but it is not now and never will be a true 
profession, until it is fully acknowledged that to the highest 
form of such work, a special preparation is necessary. 

III. In accordance with these views, it should now be our 
endeavor to secure the establishment of such professional 
courses in connection with our colleges and universities. Such 
instruction if it consisted only of courses of lectures on the 
history of educational doctrine and educational institutions 
would be exceedingly valuable, in that they would, at least, in- 
troduce the student to the general direction of educational 
development and progress. But in addition to these, there 
should be practical courses which should deal with the methods 
appropriate to different subjects in the different stages of school- 
work, and a seminary which should have for its object the 
encouragement of original work on the part of the members in 
the sphere of pedagogics, theoretical, practical and historical. 

IV. The establishment of such courses would bring with 
them the following advantages : 

1. As said before, it would offer an opportunity for the 
teacher to secure such preparation for his future calling, as could 
not but result in much more efficient work in the school-room 
in every direction. 

2. The existence of such opportunities could not but result 
in attracting to the line of teaching, those who have a 
natural taste for such work, and who would expect to follow it 
as a permanent calling. 

3. The natural result of this would be, that more men and 
women would take up this occupation as their life-work, which 
would mean that a long step had been taken toward making a 
profession of what is now only a trade. 

4. The reflex action of all this would be an enormous im- 
provement of our schools ; a great change in the social position 
of the school-master as such, and a corresponding change in 
the public estimate of the importance of good education. 

5. The advantages thus far enumerated, would all accrue, 
even if as a result of all this work there should be no positive 



31 

additions to our knowledge of the science and art of education. 
But one of the chief advantages of this line of development, 
would be the increase in our knowledge of pedagogics, which 
could not but follow the establishment of such opportunities at 
\the great centers of learning in this country. We may say now, 
that a very small fraction of the teachers of this country in our 
higher schools and colleges are giving any attention or thought 
to the development of the science, or to improvements in the 
art of education. The causes of this are various, but the most 
important one of all, is the utter ignorance of what is within 
the easy reach of any society in regard to the history of the 
science and art of pedagogics. Their attention has never been 
directed to the fact, there is here a great and largely neglected 
field of investigation which is peculiarly theirs, and which holds 
out large promises of great results if it be properly worked. 
The probable additions to our knowledge of the theory and art 
of education which would follow a successful attempt to turn 
the attention of great numbers of teachers to their careful 
snd systematic study are simply incalculable. It can only be 
compared to the progress in the science of medicine, of juris- 
prudence, of dentistry, of physics, of chemistry, which has been 
the outcome of making the universities the nurseries of these 
sciences, and to some extent, the arts belonging to them. To 
the higher schools of a country, the colleges and universities is 
entrusted the nurture of science par excellence. Theirs, the 
duty to receive, preserve, and increase the stock of knowledge, 
which is the outcome of all previous civihzation and progress. 

In a word, the establishment and proper equipment of these 
departments will contribute to the advantage of our children 
directly and indirectly by giving them better teachers ; it will 
secure a better application of the money spent on education ; it 
will give teachers a better opportunity to prepare themselves 
for their high calling ; it will dignify their occupation and tend 
to raise it to the rank of a learned profession ; it will further the 
very purpose for which our educational institutions exist ; and 
last, but by no means least, will result in a wide extension of 
human science — which is itself one of the chief ends of 
humanity. 



APPEN DIX. 



NOTE I. 



The literature on this subject is not large, although, it is in 
some respects important and significant. The addresses pre- 
pared by eminent specialists for particular occasions form the 
most valuable portion of it. The following list contains refer- 
ences to the most accessible portion of the literature. 

1. Prof. S. S. Laurie, of Edinburgh University. — Inaugural 
Address before the University on the Training of Teachers. 
London, 1882. 

2. J. G. Fitch, M. A. One of Her Majesty's Inspectors of 

Schools. Relation of the University to the Teaching Pro- 
fession, in Lectures on Teaching. Cambridge, 1882. 

3. Prof. W. H. Payne, of Michigan University. — Education 

as a University Study in Contributions to the Science of 
Education. New York, 1886. 

4. Prof. Edward North, of Hamilton College. — Normal In- 
struciiou in Colleges. University of New York Regents' 
Reports. 1868. p. 701. 

5. Dr. Thomas Hill, President of Harvard College. — The 

Study of Didactics in Colleges. Barnard's American Jour- 
nal of Education. Vol. 15, p. 179. 

6. Report of Committee on the felt need of stipplying pedagogi- 

cal training to the studettts of the Colleges in the State, made 
to the Convocation of the University of New York. Re- 
gents' Reports. 1882. P. 39. 

7. Prof. C. V. Stoy, of the University of Jena. — Educational 
papers in various German periodicals. 

8. Dr. Fricke, of the Waisenhaus, in Halle. — Das padago- 
gische Seminar. Halle, 1883. 

9. Prof. E. J. James, of the University of Pennsylvania. — The 

32 



33 

Higher Education of Teachers at the University of yena. 
New England Journal of Education. Vol. XVIII., p. 356 
and p. 372. 

10. Weilingen. — Das PddagogiscJie Seminar in Jena. Jena. 
Gustav Fischer. 1880 (.?) 

11. Karl Schmidt. — Geschichte der Pddagogik. — Vol. IV., 
p. 782 and foil. 

12. Mathew Arnold. The Prussian Schoolmasters ; their 
Training, etc., in Higher Schools and Universities in Ger- 
many. Macmillan & Co. 1874. Pp. 6"/ and especially 82 
and foil, 

13. Other references to the subject in the Standard German 
Histories of Education. Reports of Discussions in School- 
masters' Associations and Conventions given in the Edu- 
cational periodicals, particularly the Londojt Jonrnal of 
Education, Die AUgemeine Schulzeitung, etc. 

14. WiESE. Verordnungen und Gesetze fiir die Hoheren 
Schulen in Preussen. 1864-74. 

15. Illinois School Journal. Normal. Illinois. Vols. I & II. 

16. Herbert Spencer. Essays on Education. New York, 188 1. 



NOTE II. 

The great function of a University is to teach ; and to sup- 
ply the world with its teachers. The very title of Doctor which 
marks the highest academic distinction in each of the faculties 
implies that the holder is qualified to teach the art he knows. 
And if the experience of these later times has brought home to 
us the conviction that the art of communicating knowledge, of ren- 
dering it attractive to a learner, is an art which has its own laws 
and special philosphy : it is surely fitting that a great Uni- 
versity, the bountiful mother whose special ofifice it is to care 
alike for all the bases of human culture and to assign to all arts 
and sciences their true place and relation, should fill an honored 
place for the master science, a science which is so closely allied 
to all else which she teaches — the science of teaching itself. 
J. G. Fitchs " Lectures on Teaching'' Chapter I. 



34 

NOTE III. 

Whatever objections may be made to Normal Schools there 
is no use of shutting our eyes to the fact that their graduates 
have succeeded in getting hold of many of the most prominent 
situations in our educational system in competition with college 
graduates. No one would think of maintaining that the curric- 
ulum of the average normal school is to be compared with that 
of a college so far as its scholarship or culture value is con- 
cerned. The only ground, then, on which we can account for 
the growing preponderance of normal school graduates in posi- 
tions for which their curriculum scarcely fits them, is that the 
advantage which they enjoy from their technical training gives 
them a start which the college man in the time which he de- 
votes to teaching as a rule, can not overtake. 

An eminent educator in the State of New York said more 
than twenty years ago : 

" The great deficiency of college graduates is ignorance of 
the methods of instruction now adopted in our better schools 
and ignorance of school discipline and management. The work 
these graduates are called upon to perform is entirely different 
from that of the professors who have made the last and perhaps 
strongest impression upon them, and whose methods they are 
unsconsciously inclined to imitate. College work is far from 
fitting students for acadamic teaching. Often it unfits them by 
substituting the more recent impression of college class work 
for those of the preparatory school from which they came. 
College graduates are superior in culture and general knowledge 
but deficient in technical skill. Unless our colleges do some- 
thing toward preparing teachers, a large part of the work of 
academic teaching must go into the hands of females." 

What was foretold has come to pass. The proportion of 
females in the teaching body of these schools has steadily in- 
creased and they are almost without exception normal school 
pupils. Of course this is not the only cause of this substitution, 
but it has been undoubtedly a contributing cause. The super- 
intendent of a system of city schools, in conversing with the 
writer about the choice of assistant teachers in the city high 



35 

school, said that for all positions which they could at all fill he 
preferred normal school graduates to college graduates. 
"Neither class remain very long with us if they are really able, 
and the normal school men have the great advantage that they 
can begin from the very first hour and attain a fair degree of 
success, while the college men, if fresh from college, flounder 
around in the most helpless way, and require two to three years 
to become as efficient as the normal school men are when they 
begin. Of course if they were to remain for a long series of 
years this difference would disappear and the culture of the 
college would tell in the long run, but as it is, the men for us are 
the normal school ijien wherever they can teach the subjects 
at all." 

A similar though by no means so marked difference is 
observed in Germany in favor of the technical training of the 
normal school graduate as compared with the average teacher in 
the gymnasium ; for although the latter has had a training in 
this respect much superior to our college men, yet it is still very 
inferior to that of the Normal School graduate. 

No one can doubt, who has taken any pains whatever to 
institute extended comparisons, that the teaching in our elemen- 
tary schools is much better on the average than that in the 
secondary school and college, and that the teachers in the former 
come much nearer realizing the ends which they set before 
them than those in the latter. Those ends are oftentimes not 
the highest, as we should expect from the culture of the teachers, 
but they are kept clearly in view and pursued with a system and 
determination which results in as high a degree of success as is 
possible under the circumstances. 

There is no doubt that so-called secondary and higher edu- 
cation have much to learn in this respect from elementary work. 

NOTE IV. 

" Young men who intend to engage in the work of higher 
instruction need careful training before entering thereon, both in 
the fundamental principles of the profession and also in its 
technique ; because first : good teaching and successful school 



• 36 

management is an art which must be learned either by careful 
and definite previous instruction or by school room experiments 
of which pupils are the subjects and too often the victims ; 
because, second, the teachers in academies and high schools 
are teachers of teachers and become the models after which 
many teachers of common schools shape their methods : third, 
a large percentage of the teachers in our higher schools con- 
tinue in the employment but a few years at best, and have no 
time therefore to waste in a school room apprenticeship, too 
often disastrous ; because, fourth, the chances for a permanent 
continuance in the profession of desirable young men would be 
largely increased if the first steps in it could be made pleasant 
and successful by careful previous instruction and because, 
fifth, in the language of President Hill, there is a sense in 
which Didactics may be called a liberal study ; it is that every 
student may be considered prospectively as the head of a 
family, and that therefore the art of teaching is of universal 
utility — a view which has been urged with great force and 
cogency by Herbert Spencer, who adds in conclusion : " the sub- 
ject which involves all other subjects and therefore the subject 
in which the education of every one should culminate is the 
theory and practice of teaching." 

Report of Committee of Convocation of University of New 
York. Regent' s Report, \^^l. 

" If there is a philosophy of education and an art of teaching, 
they are as applicable to the advanced departments of instruc- 
tion as to the elementary. The teachers of academies as much 
need systematic education into the best methods of their duties 
as do the teachers of the common schools into those peculiar to 
them. Many a lad after he has completed his elementary edu- 
cation has had his taste for study absolutely destroyed and his 
scholarship ruined by an unskillful teacher." 

Regent's Report for 1^6"/, p. xx. 

NOTE V. 

The proposition has often been made that this training 
should be given in special post-graduate schools. Thus Presi- 
dent Hill of Harvard College, in the address referred to in Note 



37 

I, said that Normal Schools should be attached to our Univer- 
sities, and bachelors of art who intend to teach should be urged 
first to take one or two year's special instruction in the art of 
teaching. The committee which reported on this subject to the 
Convocation of the University of New York in 1881, (Regent's 
Report for 1882, p. 346,) remarked that such a school would in 
the present state of our education be too likely to repeat the expe- 
rience of the French Ecole Normal, which after being twice 
closed on account of insufficient patronage, did not secure 
a firm foothold until after thirty-six years of vicissitudes. We 
may add that it does not even now correspond to such an insti- 
tution as President Hill proposed. The various philogical 
seminaries in the German Universities are in so far pedagogical 
seminaries as that they are intended for the special benefit of 
those who expect to become teachers, but their attention is 
almost entirely confined to developing a sound scholarship in 
philology, and but little effort is devoted to studying padagogy 
in any but this indirect form. The post-graduate pedagogical 
seminaries in Prussia, although they have done a good work, do 
not at all answer the purposes which can be attained by the 
system proposed in this paper. As a matter of fact, only the 
merest fraction of those who hold the higher positions in 
the gymnasia or real schools have ever been in these seminaries 
at all. The reasons why such institutions are not likely to suc- 
ceed are numerous and of force in all countries alike. 

NOTE VI. 

It is not good that this science, or indeed that any other 
science should be mainly pursued per se, in separate training 
institutions or professional colleges where the horizon is neces- 
sarily bounded, and where everything is learned with a special 
view to the future necessities of the class-room scholar. It is 
to the Universities that the power is given in the highest degree 
of co-ordinating the various forms of preparation for the busi- 
ness of life ; of seeing in due proportion the study and the prac- 
tice the art and science, the intellectual efforts which make 
the man as well as those which make the lawyer or divine. It 



38 

is to the Universities that the public should look for these in- 
fluences which will prevent the nobler professions from degen- 
erating into crafts and trades. And if the schoolmaster is to 
become something more than a mere pedant, to know the rules 
and formulae of his art and at the same time estimate them at 
their true value, it is to the University that he must look for his 
guidance, and it is from the University that he should seek in 
due time the attestation of his qualifications as a teacher, be- 
cause that is the authority which can testify that he is not 
merely a teacher, but a teacher and something else. 

J. G. Fitchs " Lectures oji Teaching." Chap. I. 

NOTE VII. 

BRITISH UNIVERSITIES AND THE TRAINING OF 

TEACHERS. 

There is no professorship of education at any University 
of England, Wales, or Ireland. At the Universities of Cambridge 
and London there are special examinations for teachers, on the 
results of which certificates or diplomas are granted ; but there 
are no educational degrees. Technically speaking, therefore, 
education is not a university subject in these countries. At 
Cambridge, under the auspices of a teachers' training syndicate 
appointed by the university early in 1879, lectures on teaching 
have been given for eight years past ; but they are not per- 
manently established, and may come to an end at any time. 
They are, as a rule, fitfully and poorly attended, and cannot as 
yet be pronounced a decided success. Except in the training 
colleges and at the College of Preceptors, there is no other sys- 
tematic course of lectures for teachers outside Scotland. 
In Scotland there are two chairs of education, established 
in 1876 out of funds left by the well-known Dr. Bell, 
one at Edinburgh, and the other at St. Andrew's. Both these 
chairs are very ill endowed. In 1886 a school-masters' diploma 
was established at the University of Edinburgh. 

I shall endeavor in the space at my disposal to describe 
what is actually being done for the training of teachers by these 
various agencies. 



39 

I will begin with Cambridge, and first as to its courses of 
lectures. They usually consist of one set on psychology in its 
bearing on teaching, delivered as a rule by Mr. James Ward of 
Trinity College; another set on the histor}' of education ; and a 
series of disconnected lectures on practice delivered by promi- 
nent head masters and other teachers. Amongst these last may 
be mentioned as specially valuable the lectures on stimulus and 
on discipline, by Mr. Arthur Sidgwick, formerly an assistant 
master at Rugby ; and one on 'A Day in a Class-Room,' by Dr. 
Abbott, head master of the City of London School. As far as 
I know, only one connected course of lectures on the practice 
of education has ever been delivered before the university ; viz., 
that by Mr. Fitch, which has since appeared as his well-known 
* Lectures on Teaching.' It may well be doubted whether the 
sporadic lectures by eminent school-masters above referred to 
can be properly said to form a part of training in any real sense; 
but they are certainly more attractive than a prolonged course, 
and are in many ways suggestive and stimulative. The reasons 
why these lectures as a whole are not more satisfactorily 
attended are mainly two, — first, because under-graduates, while 
reading for their degrees, have very little time to devote to other 
subjects ; and, second, because it is the habit at our universities 
to look upon lectures as merely preparation for examinations, 
and to value examinations solely by the prizes attached to them. 
Now, there are no prizes attached to the teacher's examina- 
tions and the head masters of our public schools practically ignore 
them altogether, while the University Agency for the supply of 
masters does not even mention the certificates on its form of 
quahfications. It is no wonder, therefore, that undergraduates 
do not crowd the lecture room. It is only fair, however, to 
state that the lectures on education suffer no more than others 
under similar drawbacks. The writer of this paper, when lec- 
turing at Cambridge a short while ago, on the history of edu- 
cation, can remember on one occasion to have counted as many 
as seventeen undergraduates present. At the time there were 
about nineteen hundred undergraduates at the university, of 
whom perhaps one-quarter were destined to become school 
masters, at least for a time. 



40 

Before a candidate can enter for the examination of the 
Cambridge Teachers' Training Syndicate, he or she must have 
given evidence of something of the nature of a sound general 
education. The test is not, as at London and Edinburgh, that 
the candidate must be a graduate of the university. Some nine 
fairly simple examinations are named, one of which must have 
been passed ; or, to make the condition still more elastic, the 
candidate must have " been presented for examination by a 
training-college approved by the syndicate." This lowering of 
the initial test, no doubt, still further removes education from 
the status of a university subject ; but it renders the examina- 
tion far more widely available, especially for women, who form 
about nine-tenths of the candidates as a rule. In the ex- 
amination of June, 1886, held at the three centres, Cam- 
bridge, London, and Cheltenham, fifty-one candidates passed, of 
whom only three were men (students of the Finsbury Training- 
College). There are two certificates granted, — one for the 
theory, history, and practice of teaching ; and, where this has 
been won, another may be obtained for practical efficiency in 
teaching. The subjects for the former are: — (i) The theory of 
education : {a) the scientific basis of the art of education, or pure 
psychology ; (b) the elements of the art of education, or the ap- 
plication of psychology to school-work in the training of the 
faculties (the senses, memory, conception, etc). (2) The history 
of education in Europe since the revival of learning, a general 
knowledge being required of systems of education which have 
actually existed, of the work of eminent teachers, and of the 
theories of leading writers on education up to the present time. 
A more detailed knowledge is required of special subjects set 
from year to year. For example, the special subjects for 1887 
are, 'John Amos Comenius, his Life and Educational Works,' 
by Professor Laurie, and 'The Life and Work of Arnold ;' those 
for 1888 will be 'Locke's Thoughts concerning Education,' and 
'The Teaching of the Jansenists at Port Royal.' (3) The prac- 
tice of education ; (a) method, which deals with actual teaching 
and examination ; {b) school management, which deals with hy- 
giene, furniture, apparatus, time-tables, etc. One paper is set 
on each of three groups of subjects; and a fourth paper is 



41 

added, containing a small number of questions of an advanced 
character on each of the three groups. It is into this paper 
that questions on physiology and physical training are usually 
introduced ; but, notwithstanding this, I cannot but think that 
these last-named subjects are not sufficiently represented. 
Candidates must be twenty years old before entering for the ex- 
amination, and must pay a fee of fifty shillings to the syndicate. 

The certificate for practical efficiency, as I have pointed 
out, can only be obtained by those who already hold the certifi- 
cate which I have just described. Candidates must "have been 
engaged in school-work for a year in some school or schools re- 
cognized for the purpose by the syndicate." Training-colleges 
of course come under this designation, " if the syndicate is sat- 
isfied with the duration and character of the training in practical 
work received by the candidates." The bases for the certificate 
are, {a) examination of the class taught by the candidate ; {b) 
an inspection of the class while being taught ; {c) questions put 
to the teacher in private after the inspection ; and [d) a report 
made by the head master or mistress. I do not think there have 
been many candidates for this certificate other than the stu- 
dents of those few training-colleges which are established for 
teachers of middle and higher schools. But then they are 
almost the only people who use the examination at all. 

It may be as well to mention here that the syndicate does 
not prescribe the use of any particular books for its examination, 
except those mentioned under the head of 'special subjects.' 
Mr. Ward has, however, from time to time put forth a list of 
some of those books which may be safely recommended to stu- 
dents, and from which they can make their own choice. I need 
scarcely say that Dr. Barnard's admirable compilations play a 
prominent part in this list. 

I have given a very full description of the Cambridge 
scheme, both because I consider it, on the whole, the best un- 
connected with a training-college in Great Britain, and because 
by so doing I shall be saved the trouble of entering into such 
minute detail again. Let me mention here, for the information 
of the curious in such matters, that in the charter of Cavendish 
College, founded at Cambridge in 1876, the objects mentioned 



42 

are, "(i) To enable students somewhat younger than ordinary 
undergraduates to pass through a university course, and obtain 
a university degree ; (2) To train in the art of teaching those 
students who intend to become schoolmasters ; (3) To secure 
the greatest possible economy in cost as well as time." I can 
not ascertain that any steps have ever been taken to realize the 
second object. Probably all that was meant was that the college 
was intended to provide ' pupil-teachers ' in the elementary 
schools, with an opportunity for finishing their general educa- 
tion. Who knows but that some day we may get it to mean 
both that and something more ? 

For the present, the only part the University of London 
can play in the higher training of teachers is that of an ex- 
aminer. As I have already said, it possesses an ' examination 
in the art, theory, and history of teaching.' Unlike the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge, it restricts its examination to its own 
graduates, and it grants a 'teacher's diploma' on the result. 
There is no restriction as to age, and the fee is five pounds. 
Four papers are set, — one on ' mental and moral science in their 
relation to the work of teaching ;' two on * methods of teaching 
and school management ;' and one on ' the history of educa- 
tion.' The science and the methods are very much the same as 
at Cambridge ; but the history consists solely of set books. It 
is described as " the lives and work of eminent teachers, and the 
systems of instruction adopted in foreign countries." The set 
books for 1887 are as follows : 'History of the University of 
Cambridge from the Earliest Times to 1535 A. D.' by Bass 
Mullinger; ' Education and School,' 'Theory and Practice of 
Teaching,' by E. Thring ; ' On the Action of Examinations,' by 
Latham ; ' Quelqes mots sur I'lnstruction publique en France,' 
by Michael Break 

There are no doubt great advantages in the direction of 
definiteness and thoroughness to be derived from the use of set 
books ; but, on the other hand, it leads to this unsatisfactory 
position, — that in 1887 teachers will gain their diploma without 
having shown any particular knowledge of the public instruction 
of England, Germany, and Switzerland, and what is worse, with- 
out having shown any particular knowledge of the theories and 



43 

methods of Froebel and Pestalozzi. As a matter of fact, one or 
two questions on these last are generally introduced into the 
other papers. It may be well to note that among the many 
things coming under the head of methods of teaching and 
school management we find mentioned physical exercises, drill^ 
and recreation. But there is another point of still greater im- 
portance. The University of London grants but one certificate, 
— not two, as does Cambridge, — and includes in that one, as a 
sine qna noii, practical skill in teaching and in the management 
of a class. No directions are given as to how this last and most 
difficult test is to be applied. But hitherto the plan adopted has 
been to require the candidates to send in sketches of lessons on 
four different subjects chosen by themselves, and to give one or 
two of these lessons to a class in the presence of the examiners 
But inasmuch as, in the necessity of things, such classes as can 
be got near at hand have to be chosen, the teachers know noth- 
ing personally of the children, and are quite in the dark as to 
the actual knowledge which the class possesses. The conse- 
quence is, that the test is far from satisfactory, and merely 
serves to show what a teacher will do under very distressing 
circumstances. At the best, it can only reveal whether a teacher 
is altogether incompetent ; all the higher qualities must remain 
unassessed. A large part of those who take degrees at the Uni- 
versity of London are the teachers of elementary and middle 
schools ; and these, by the time they have graduated, have 
already had many years of school experience ; hence the insist- 
ence on the practical test as an integral part of the London ex- 
amination for teachers. The Cambridge examination is rather 
designed for those who intend to become school-masters and 
school-mistresses. The London examination has only been in 
existence some three or four years, and so far has been but very 
little made use of. 

As I said at the commencement, there are two chairs of 
pedagogy in Scotland, — one at the University of Edinburgh, 
and the other at the University of St. Andrew's. Their work 
is sufficiently alike to allow one description to do for both. I 
will choose the chair of Edinburgh, held by Prof. S. S. Laurie.* 



*The chair at St. Andrew's is held by Prof. J. M. D. Meiklejohn, whose name 
and work must be well known in the United States. 



44 

This chair was founded in 1876, and commenced work with 
fourteen students, — a number which has steadily been added to, 
until the total has now reached fifty-one. Of these students, 
about three-fifths are ' senior students ' of the denominational 
training-colleges, who, having passed a qualifying examination 
in Latin and mathematics, and stood in the first division of the 
government list of successful candidates for Queen's scholar- 
ships (i.e., entrance scholarships at the training-colleges), are 
allowed to attend the university. The remainder are students 
who have graduated or are about to graduate. This latter class 
will not be likely to attend in larger numbers until either the 
subject of education is included in the studies qualifying for an 
M. A. degree, or an act is passed requiring all school-masters 
in Scotland above the elementary grade to hold a diploma in 
education. A long course of eighty-five lectures is delivered 
between the first of November and the first of April, Of these 
lectures, about a dozen are purely psychological, dealing with the 
intelligence and moral nature ; fifty are on method, dealing with 
principles of teaching and the detailed application of these ; the 
rect on the history of education. These last naturally vary 
considerably from year to year ; but every year a careful 
analysis of Quintilian and Locke is given. I must confess 
that the choice of these two last as staple subjects seems to me 
peculiar. All the students attend three examinations, and write 
three essays. These form the subject of professorial criticism. 
Those students who have not been, or who are not, training- 
college students practice the art of teaching in the normal 
schools (by permission), and are examined by the head masters 
of those schools on practical matters of school management. 
The head masters report to the professor. Last year the uni- 
versity instituted a school-masters' diploma specially for 
secondary sehool-masters, which, however, is to be conferred 
only on graduates in arts of Edinburgh. Candidates, moreover, 
must have attended the class of the theory, art, and history of 
education in the university, and must pass an examination in 
these subjects conducted by the professor and an examiner ap- 
pointed by the university court. The subjects of examination 
in April, 1887, were, (a) the professor's lectures ; {b) Locke, 

LofC. 



45 

• On the Conduct of the Human Understanding ;' (c) Milton, 
'Tractate on Education;' (d) Comenius, 'Great Didactic' 
Each candidate must further give evidence either that he has 
attended a course of practical instruction in a training-college ; 
or that he possesses the government qualification in the prac- 
tice of teaching required of graduates and provided in the 

* Scottish Code ;' or that he has taught publicly for at least one 
year in a school, and holds such a certificate of practical skill 
from the head master as may be considered satisfactory by 
the university. Lastly, each candidate must satisfy the univer- 
sity of his practical aptitude as a teacher in some special sub- 
ject or subjects in which he has received instruction in the 
university or in any institution recognized by the university as 
qualifying for degrees. I may note in conclusion that the fee 
for the diploma is two guineas. I have not yet been able to 
ascertain whether St. Andrew's is likely to follow the lead of 
Edinburgh in instituting a school-masters' diploma. 

It only remains for me to speak of the College of Preceptors 
in London. This institution provides three courses of evening 
lectures for teachers, and confers diplomas of three grades, — 
associateship, licentiateship, and fellowship. The lectures are 
on {a) psychology and its relation to teaching ; {d) practical 
teaching ; and (c) the history of education. The courses used 
to consist of ten lectures each ; but in future the number of 
lectures on the first two subjects will be doubled. They are 
open free to all members of the college (annual subscription one 
guinea), or to any one else on payment of half a guinea for each 
course. 

The examination for the three kinds of diploma all include 
tests of a general education of gradually increasing severity ; 
but these tests may be omitted in the cases of persons possess- 
ing a university degree, or who have passed some examination 
equally satisfactory to the college. What most concerns us 
here are the strictly pedagogic subjects. To begin, then, with 
the associateship. Candidates must give evidence of having 
been at least one year engaged in teaching, or of having attended 
a year's course of the lectures for teachers at the college. The 
subjects are, (i) the elements of mental and moral science ; (2) 



46 

physiology, with special reference to its application to the laws 
of health and to physical and mental education ; and (3) lesson- 
giving and criticism of methods, including the sketching of a 
lesson on some assigned subject, the suggesting and discussing 
of cases of difficulty in teaching and discipline, and the propos- 
ing and criticising of methods. For the licentiateship the can- 
didates must give evidence of having been at least two years 
engaged in teaching. The subjects are the same as for the 
associateship, with the addition of logic in its application to 
education ; while the third section now includes " a thesis on 
the life, character, methods, and influence of some distinguished 
educator to be selected by the candidate, or a description of the 
organization and methods of some school of repute derived from 
personal inspection and examination." The candidates for the 
fellowship must give evidence of having been not less than five 
years engaged in teaching. Sections No. i and No. 2 are the 
same as before, but of a more advanced character. Section 3 
becomes " government of a school, including lesson-giving and 
school organization in all its departments." Section 4 is " the 
history of education and educational methods, with studies of 
distinguished educators, English and foreign ; and a description 
and discussion of the methods and organization of schools and 
colleges of note at home and abroad." The fees, in the first 
case, for examination and diploma together, are two guineas ; 
in the second, three guineas ; and in the third, six guineas. 
Examinations are held twice a year, — at midsummer and Christ- 
mas. During 1886, for the three diplomas together, 136 candi- 
dates entered, — 70 men and 66 women. Of these, 45 obtained 
associateship, 4 the licentiateship, and i the fellowship. This 
will serve to show both how much the examinations are used, 
and the severity observed in awarding the diplomas. 

H. COURTHOPE BOWEN. 

Science, Vol. X., No. 247. 



THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OP THE PAPERS READ 
BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION. 



Those Marked * out of Print, f Not Printed. 



1871. Compulsory Education. By Lorin Blodget. * 
Arbitration as a Remedy for Strikes. By Eckley B. Coxe. * 
The Revised Statutes of Pennsylvania. By R. C. McMurtrie. * 
Local Taxation. By Thomas Cochran. * 

Infant Mortality. By Dr. J. S. Parry. 

1872. Statute Law and Common Law, and the Proposed Revision in Pennsyl- 

vania. By E. Spencer Miller, f 

Apprenticeship. By James S. Whitney. 

The Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of Pennsylvania. By Francis 
Jordan. 

Vaccination. By Dr. J. S. Parry. * 

The Census. By Lorin Blodget. * 
i8'J3. The Tax System of Pennsylvania, By Cyrus Elder. * 

The Work of the Constitutional Convention. By A. Sydney Biddle. 

What shall Philadelphia do with its Paupers ? By Dr. Isaac Ray. 

Proportional Representation. By S. Dana Horton. * 

Statistics Relating to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, etc., in Philadelphia. 
By John Stockton-Hough, M. D. 

On the Value of Real Scientific Research. By Dr. Ruschenberger. 

On the Relative Influence of City and Country Life, on Morality, Health, 
Fecundity, Longevity and Mortality. By John Stockton -Hough, M. D. 
1874. The Public School System of Philadelphia. By James S. Whitney. 

The Utility of Government Geological Surveys. Professor J. P. Lesley. 

The Law of Partnership. By J. G. Rosengarten. * 

Methods of Valuation of Real Estate for Taxation. By Thomas Cochran. 

The Merits of Cremation. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 

Outlines of Penology. By Joseph R, Chandler. 
i8'jS' Brain Disease and Modern Living. By Dr. Isaac Ray. f 

Hygiene of the Eye, Considered with Reference to the Children in our 
Schools. By Dr. F. D. Castle. 

The Relative Morals of City and Country. By William S. Pierce. 

Silk Culture and Home Industry. By Dr. Samuel Chamberlaine. 

Mind Reading, etc. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 

Legal Status of Married Women in Pennsylvajtia. By N. D, Miller. 

The Revised Status of the United States. By Lorin Blodget. 
i8'^6. Training Nurses for the Sick. By John H. Packard, M. D. 

The Advantages of the Co-operative Feature of Building Associations. 
By Edmund Wrigley. 

The Operations of our Building Associations. By Joseph I. Doran. 

Wisdom in Charity. By Rev. Charles G. Ames. * 
iSyy. Free Coinage and a Self -Adjusting Ratio. By Thomas Balch. 

Building Systems for Great Cities. By Lorin Blodget. 

Metric System. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 
i8'f8. Cause and Cure of Hard Times. By R. J. Wright. 

House-Drainage and Sewerage. By George E. Waring, Jr. 

A Plea for a State Board of Health. By Benjamin Lee, M. D. 

The Germ Theory of Disease, and its Present Bearing upon Public and 
Personal Hygiene. By Joseph G. Richardson, M. D. 
iSyg. Delusive Methods of Municipal Financiering. By William F. Ford, f 

Technical Education. By A. C. Rembaugh, M. D. 

The English Methods of Legislation Compared with the American, 
By S. Sterne. 



iSjg. Thoughts on the Labor Question. By Rev. D, O. Kellogg. 

On the Isolation of Persons in Hospitals for the Insane. By Dr. Isaac Ray. 

Notes on Reform Schools. By J. G. Rosengarten. * 
jSSo. Philadelphia Charity Organization. By Rev. Wm. H. Hodge. 

Public Schools in their Relations to the Community. By James S. Whitney. 

Industrial and Decorative Art in Public Schools. By Charles G. Leland. 

Penal and Reformatory Institutions. By J. G. Rosengarten. 
i88i. Nominations for Ptcblic Office. By Mayer Sulzberger. 

Modelling for the Study of Human Character. By Edward A. Spring, f 
1882. Municipal Government. By John C. Bullitt. 

Result of Art Education in Schools. By Chas. G. Leland. 

Apprenticeship at it IVas and Is. By Addison B. Burk. 
i88j. The American Aristocf-acy. By Lincoln L. Eyre. 

A Plea for a New City Hospital. By Thomas W. Barlow. 

Some Practical Aims on School Hygiene. By Dr. Lincoln, f 

The Pending School Problems. By Professor M. B. Snyder. 

Municipal Government. By Wm. Righter Fisher. 

Social Condition of the Industrial Classes. By Lorin Blodget. 
1884. Progress of Industrial Education. By Phillip C. Garrett. 

A Plea for Better Distribution. By Charles M. DuPuy. 

Formation of Public Libraries in Philadelphia. By Lloyd P. Smith, f 

Best Means of Regaining Health. By Dr. Walters, f 

Milk Supplies of our Large Cities, etc., etc. By J. Cheston Morris, M. D. 
i88s- Alcoholism. By A. C. Rembaugh, M. D. 

Sanitary Reforms in Large Cities. By Dr. Leflfmann. f 

Sanitary Influence of Forest Growth. Dr. J. M. Anders. 

Outline of a Proposed School of Political and Social Science. By Edmund 
J. James, Ph. D. 
1S86. The Organization of Local Boards of Health in Pennsylvania. By Benj. 
Lee, A. M., M. D., Ph. D. 

Manual Training a Valuable Feature in General Education. By C. M. 
Woodward, Ph. D. 

The Gas Question in Philadelphia. By Edmund J. James, Ph. D. 

Trade Dollars : The President'' s Power, etc., etc. By Dr. James C. Plallock. 

The Balance of Power between Industrial and Intellecttial Work. By Miss 
M. M. Cohen. 

Wife Beating as a Crime, and its Relation to Taxation. By Hon. Robert 
Adams, Jr. 

Defeat of Party Despotism. By Rev. Dr. Leonard W. Bacon, f 

Land and Individualism. By Kemper Bocock. f 
1887. Chairs of Pedagogics in our Universities. By Edmund J. James, Ph. D. 



H^8^ 83 -< 



